Creative brief

Chuck Palahniuk - author of FIGHT CLUB and CHOKE - needs "Operation Havoc" logo/stickers! This project is in support of Chuck Palahniuk's new novel, PYGMY, which Doubleday publishes in May. There's plenty to read about the book all over the web, but you might want to visit his fan site for more insight into Chuck:

The novel is about a group of adolescent agents from an unspecified country not unlike North Korea who, disguised as foreign exchange students, enter the US with the intent of infiltrating typical American families and eventually unleashing a terrorist act which they have called Operation Havoc. We want to design and print "Operation Havoc" stickers that these agents would recognize and that Palahniuk's fans can distribute.

OUR TARGET AUDIENCE IS:

Chuck's fans skew young for hardcover book buyers, so I would say 18 to 34, 50/50 m/f, college educated, affluent, urban, hipsters, suicide girls, fans of transgressive fiction and the alternative music scene. Chuck's appearances are unruly, rowdy affairs. Chuck is definitely idolized by his fans, as someone who can express some of the anxiety/anger/outrage/disgust/amusement that many of them feel about America. There's definitely an edgy/outsider thing here.

WE LIKE THESE DESIGNS:

The design of the book itself (see the files available to the left) will give you a lot of direction. In general, we'll want something that his fans will be proud to work with, so it should be subversive and slyly promotional.

WE ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE (or we don't want to see) THIS IN OUR DESIGN:

It must say "Operation Havoc". I can't think of any other "musts" except that it associate with the book in some interesting way. We've uploaded a couple of sample chapters here so feel free to read them and hopefully they're inspire your design. There is no need to include "Doubleday" in the design. Chuck Palahniuk is the important brand here. We may want to include the url for the fan site: chuckpalahniuk.net.

Brief updates

8-Apr-09 12:58 p.m.GMT

UPDATE: I'd like to point out the File 3 is an excerpt and I encourage you to read it to get a sense of the book. Also, I bears repeatign that we are billing this as THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE meets SOUTH PARK, so while there is darkness and menace, there is also humor, albeit dark humor.

FONTS: The fonts used on the cover are Chronicle and Farnham

9-Apr-09 1:35 p.m.GMT

Remember: this is THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE meets SOUTH PARK. Entries should have some irreverent wit.

9-Apr-09 10:14 p.m.GMT

New notion: Bonecrusher indirectly gave me an idea. Each design could consist of a number of stickers that could be peeled off and assembled into unique, somewhat coherent designs. An interesting challenge.

14-Apr-09 4:20 p.m.GMT

FILE 4: I just re-uploaded the excerpt, chapters one to three. It's a pdf. Some had said the original file was acting corrupted. Right now, it's the only place anywhere that one can read the first three chapters. Enjoy!

14-Apr-09 4:24 p.m.GMT

Thank you so much for all the submissions! I'm sorry I haven't been able to comment on them all so far. I was away for the long weekend (without internet access!) and the site is frankly a little slow, so it takes time to get a good look at each and make meaningful comments. I am honestly very impressed with the quality of the work overall. And, though some may not believe me, Chuck Palahniuk himself will be having a look at these and will have a say in the final three. Thanks again for all the creative energy!

OK, we're closing this project on Monday and I'll want to have a quick turn around. The book is out on May 5 so I have to hustle off the the presses with these stickers. In the end, I'm going to be looking for three designs that are compelling in their own right and different enough that they reflect a diversity of tastes. It won't be three clean logos.